


for a quiet moment

by limesicle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, can be read as platonic (i think), just a moment i needed, not a fix it, post season 6 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 09:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14974601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limesicle/pseuds/limesicle
Summary: They’re all exhausted that night — after the whole thing with Lotor and Shiro coming back from the dead. But Keith can’t sleep. He finds himself tiptoeing around his mother’s sleeping figure and over Shiro’s to get out of the Black Lion. He finds himself going to Red.





	for a quiet moment

It’s been one hell of a day. He woke up to finding a hidden civilization of Alteans, and now they’ve witnessed the destruction of a second Galra emperor and the place they all had thought of as home at one point or another. Nevermind the part where he had to fight Shiro’s evil clone to the death.

 

If Keith had his way, he would be fast asleep, closing himself away from the intensity of the day and allowing him to rest both physically and mentally, but his thoughts won’t let him. He replays scenes over and over. He hears the sounds of battle still echoing in his ears, and his heart is beating a few beats faster per minute than it should. The adrenaline is still in his system.

 

He thinks about the team — about Voltron. He’s been gone for years. Or to him it’s been years. To them, it can’t have been long at all. They don’t look at all different from what he remembers. However, something about them feels colder. The bonds they have are obviously strong, but they feel like they were forged in battle instead of in friendship. There’s a hardened quality to it that Keith is used to from others, like the Blades, but not from the paladins.

 

His mind spins around and around in circles. He thinks about what he has missed. He thinks about the way that he has aged two years, and they haven’t. He has always been the lone wolf of the team. Now he feels like he’s hardly part of the team at all. Sure, he managed to slip into the role of the Black paladin, but they were desperate, and he was the most obvious choice. Or rather, he was the only choice. His mother was a pilot, so she might have had the capability, but she hardly knew the rest of the team. And Romelle wasn’t even a pilot.

 

Keith shifts quietly. They brought blankets and things from the castle to sleep on, and he takes one to wrap around his shoulders. Krolia stirs slightly as he steps over her legs. She probably wakes but thinks better of stopping him. Shiro’s breathing is deep and even. Keith pauses to listen for a moment and see that Shiro is getting some well-deserved rest. He steps carefully toward the door, keeping his footsteps nearly soundless.

 

Outside, the ground is barren, and there’s a moon rising over the horizon. It casts a pale glow over the five lions. The ground is slightly soft beneath his feet, like sand but more solid. His steps are soundless as he climbs a nearby ridge. From the top, he can easily look over the backs of the five lions. All the lights are out. All the others must be asleep. He walks in silence for a while, circling the lions and making some vague excuse to himself that he’s checking to make sure the area is safe.

 

After walking for a while, he comes to a halt in front of Red. He hasn’t been the Red Lion’s pilot for a long time now, but the connection has never quite died. He knows the red paladin is Lance, but just a quiet greeting should be fine.

 

He places his hand on the lion’s nose. While Red remains still, Keith can feel something shift. The connection with Red buzzes in the back of his mind. A moment later, the lion’s mouth drops open. Keith blinks at it. Lance wouldn’t want him there, and he doesn’t know why Red would either.

 

He hears quiet footsteps come from inside the Red Lion and freezes. That has to be Lance. The only person it could possibly be is Lance. And Keith isn’t sure how to face him. He wants to talk to Lance. He wants to be friends. He wants to reach whatever warmth they had between them before he left the team again, but he doesn’t know how. 

 

For once, Lance is silent. For once, Keith wishes he was louder.

 

Lance looks at him carefully, his blue eyes just glinting in the moonlight. Keith feels the urge to turn away, but his feet keep him rooted to the spot. For him, it’s been two years since they’ve met. Two years he spent trying to keep his thoughts away from the people he was missing and failing miserably. Two years of only hearing Lance’s voice in his dreams. It’s hard to remember now, what parts he dreamt and what parts are actual memories.

 

“You can come in,” Lance says, breaking the silence.

 

Keith pauses, about to refuse, but then doesn’t. Instead he gives a short nod, which is all it takes for Lance to turn around and lead the way back to the cockpit. With Kaltenecker in there too, it’s a tight fit. Lance leans against one of the panels and Keith against another, both staring at the empty pilot’s chair.

 

“Lance,” he says hesitantly. “I’m sorry for earlier.”

“Huh?” He sounds distracted.

“When I arrived earlier, you came up to greet me, and I blew you off. I’m… sorry.”

 

Lance considers for a moment. Keith can feel the weight of his stare but doesn’t return it.

 

“Nah, you had more important things to do.” He tries to make it sound offhand, like it didn’t matter to him, but he only half-succeeds.

“You’re important, too,” Keith blurts out.

 

He can feel the shock rolling off of Lance.

 

“I’m what?” He asks. “I mean, I know that, I’m Loverboy Lance, Red Paladin extraordinaire, defender of the universe, etc. but you think—Keith, I—I’ve felt too many emotions today, I don’t know what to do with this, too.”

“I—yeah, emotions. For me it was just—I didn’t want to lose Shiro…or Voltron or the universe.”

 

Lance huffs out a laugh that sounds more like  _ wow, we’ve really been through it _ than anything else. 

 

And it hits Keith how much they really have been through. He can feel the anxiety from the day building up within him. The layer of adrenaline that had been protecting him seeps away, and he’s left fully exposed to the full force of his emotions. He thinks of Shiro and fighting him and seeing all the clones. He nearly died.  _ They _ nearly died. And then there was Lotor and the quintessence field, and he only has a vague picture of what the team looked like when Lotor was with them. He thinks of Shiro being literally brought back from the dead and how Lance blames himself for how long it took. He doesn’t know how to begin processing that one.

 

Mostly caught up in his thoughts, he hardly registers the warmth of a pair of arms encircling him. When he realizes, his body tenses. This kind of physical contact is foreign and always has been. He realizes, too, that he doesn’t hate it, that the warmth Lance supplies is a flame he’s drawn to.

 

Lance takes his reaction the wrong way and pulls back, muttering excuses as he does. Keith grabs him back before he gets too far.

 

“This time, I’ll remember you cradling me in your arms,” Lance says. His tone is light, but there’s something in his voice that makes Keith want to hold him closer.

 

He doesn’t know how long they stand like that for. He just knows it’s long enough for the feeling to imprint itself onto his skin. Lance’s arms remove themselves gently, and he backs up a step. With the distance that’s now between them, Keith feels cold. He pulls the blanket a little tighter around his shoulders.

 

Lance is silent for a moment as he glances around the cockpit. “You can sleep here.” He gesture to an empty space on the floor.

Keith glances down. “I’m not sure I can sleep at all.”

“Same,” Lance says. “But we should try. No offense, but you look like you could use some rest.”

 

Keith considers for a second, before sitting down. The floor is hard, but there aren’t any stray pebbles digging into him, which makes it marginally better than sleeping on the ground. He’s about to lie down when Lance stops him.

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says.

Keith sits up again, startled.

“You’re sleeping in that?”

Keith shrugs.

“But… you’re wearing  _ armor _ .” Lance stands back to look him over. “When was the last time you changed your clothes?”

“Uh.” Keith hesitates.

“ _ Gross _ ,” Lance says. “Wait a tick.”

 

He disappears to dig through the things he brought from the castle. Keith hears him rummaging for a few minutes before he straightens up with a soft victory shout. He catches the clothes Lance throws at him automatically. There’s a pair of loose-fitting pants and a tank top. Presumably, they’re taken from the closets in their rooms. It takes him a moment to notice that they’re red. Unless Lance switched rooms, he would still have been in the blue paladin’s room, and since the paladins’ wardrobes were so strictly color-coded, that could only mean he’d been to Keith’s old room, too. 

 

Lance turns around. “Tell me when you’re done,” he says, a bit awkwardly.

 

Keith glances down at the clothes he’s holding. There are so many things about this situation that are foreign to him, but he has been wearing the Blades suit for two years (he did take it off to wash it). He changes as quickly as he can, and pushes the suit he changed out of the way.

 

“I’m, uh, decent,” he says.

Lance turns back around, lowering his hands from his face, and Keith is struck by the urge to laugh at the fact that Lance felt the need to cover his eyes.

“Alright, bedtime,” Lance says, glancing at the floor. “Though it would be nicer if there were an actual bed.” 

 

He grabs a couple of pillows and blankets from somewhere and tosses them on the floor. He looks it over once before sitting down. Keith follows suit. Between the pilot’s chair and the wall, there isn’t much room, so they sit staring at each other for a minute.

 

“Um, goodnight,” Lance says, making a place for himself on the floor.

 

Keith doesn’t move immediately. He’s met with a half-annoyed look from Lance.

 

“Now you’re just making it awkward,” he says.

 

Keith flushes and settles down next to Lance, trying to keep as much space between them as he can without plastering himself up against the wall. He does his best to close his eyes and quiet his mind. Something about being around Lance has calmed him somewhat, but he still feels too awake. It doesn’t help that his bare shoulders are making it harder to feel warm. He tries to be subtle as he pulls his blanket tighter.

 

Lance cracks an eye open. “Are you cold?”

 

All it takes is a small nod from Keith, before he’s throwing off his own blanket and standing up. Keith watches him, noticing that the pants he’s wearing are the blue counterparts to the ones he gave Keith. Lance returns after a moment and tosses a familiar olive green jacket at him.

 

Keith stares at it after he catches it.

“I don’t have any more blankets” is the only explanation Lance gives.

 

Keith slides one arm in and then the other. It fits almost perfectly. He already feels much warmer than he did before.

 

When he lies down, Lance’s eyes flicker over to him. “Goodnight, Keith,” he says softly.

“Goodnight, Lance,” he replies.

 

He closes his eyes feeling more relaxed than he has in a long time. He doesn’t have to worry about predators trying to get him when he’s asleep or waking to the makeshift roof falling on his head. The next mission is already determined, and it feels like the pieces of his life are finally starting to fall into place.

 

Some amount of time later, he wakes to a shift in Red’s energy. Lance blinks his eyes open at the same time. Keith sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

 

“I should get back,” he says, and Lance nods like he understands, though his eyes are half-closed.

 

Keith grabs his clothes and the blanket he came with. As he walks toward the door, he glances over his shoulder where Lance raises a hand in farewell before face-planting back into his pillow. Keith exits the lion and is just starting to head back to the black lion when he runs into his mother. It’s only when he sees her that he realizes there’s a soft smile on his lips. He quickly schools his expression into something more neutral.

 

Krolia looks at him with a knowing sort of look. “Lance, right?”

Keith pauses before responding. “Lance,” he affirms.

**Author's Note:**

> Season 6 killed me. That's it, I'm dead. I wrote this really quickly, so forgive me for crappy quality;;; I don't even know what I'm writing anymore. I just have a lot of feelings.


End file.
